A.M. Vitals: Pfizer CEO Ian Read Says There’s Life After Lipitor

By Katherine Hobson

Looking Past the Cliff: In an interview with the WSJ, new Pfizer CEO Ian Read says that the company won’t lose all of the roughly $11 billion in sales generated by Lipitor when the anti-cholesterol drug loses patent protection later this year. Read also reiterates his intention to review Pfizer’s businesses and consider whether certain non-core units may “have a better value to Pfizer shareholders outside of Pfizer rather than in.” (If you can’t get enough of Pfizer this morning, Forbes also writes about the pharma giant.)

Loving Embrace: Generic drug giant Teva is buying Cephalon for $6.8 billion, or about $81.50 per share, Bloomberg News reports. Cephalon had been fending off an unwanted $73-per-share bid from Valeant Pharmaceuticals, saying the offer was too low.

More Under-26ers: At least 600,000 people under age 26 have taken advantage of the provision in the health-care overhaul law requiring their parents’ insurers to cover them, Kaiser Health News reports. WellPoint alone said last week that 280,000 members added to its rolls during the first quarter were these young adults; because most of the growth occurred at self-insured employers, it isn’t driving insurers’ profits.

Plan vs. Plan: Would House Republicans’ budget proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher system make the government insurance program similar to what is offered to federal employees? Not really, the NYT reports. In the federal employees’ system, the government pays a certain percentage of premiums — thereby sharing the pain of rapidly rising health-care costs. In the Medicare proposal, seniors would receive subsidies that would rise only as fast as overall consumer inflation, causing policyholders to pick up a growing share of their health costs.

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Thank you so much. I hope girls and women everywhere boceme more sensible about their own health.@Sujatha So glad that you've read them both and love them. And, I don't part with any books of mine. I have the habit of rereading them :). Thank you and it is really wonderful how she understands and explains so beautifully what Indian women face and how they should cope.@Dr. antony absolutely right! as parents, we are the first ones to set an example to our kids by cooking and eating healthy and explaining to them the importance of exercise and good food. That is what most people don't understand that health and fitness are related to lifestyle and they are a lifelong commitment not some fad.